No country has had more nonsense written about it than the Soviet Union. From foreign visitors of high political renown through the journalists and up to and including many of the “experts” the truth has been distorted, misunderstood, or ignored in countless dispatches, articles, and books written for the American public. Some of these mistakes have doubtless been wilful, but many others have been blunders of innocent and well-meaning people who simply knew too little of their subject. In this book Mr. Dallin has attempted to find out why these notions are so current and to show not only examples of this misinformation but what actually goes on within the vast lands of the Soviet Union. He has tried to show the workings of the huge apparatus of government, of the secret police, of the Army, of the party within the party of peasants and workers, all of which presents a picture different from that ordinarily presented to the outside world. Past the censorship and the propaganda there are indeed discernible new elements in the Russian scene, as well as the old but efficient mechanism of the party that governs many races and creeds in every corner of the globe, including territories that are by no means Russian. Mr. Dallin is the author of two books on Russia which have been enthusiastically received by American critics, SOVIET RUSSIA’S FOREIGN POLICY, 1939–1942, and RUSSIA AND POSTWAR EUROPE. He has made a lifelong study of the matters treated in this book.

“I herewith nominate THE REAL SOVIET RUSSIA as the best book of 1944 on the Soviet Union.”—William Henry Chamberlin in the New Leader.

“It contains so much little known information that it makes fascinating and disquieting reading.”—Baltimore Evening Sun.

“This book is by far one of the meatiest and most enlightening volumes on the USSR published in years. It is likely to cause a good deal of controversy and a lot of hard thinking about what is perhaps the paramount postwar problem. … This is a ‘must’ book for anyone concerned over the outlook for postwar peace and stability.”—Selig Greenberg in the Providence Journal.